Audra Mc Donald

Audra is a unique artist in terms of the range and variety of her talent as a performer and song writer. She was the recipient of record-breaking six Tony Awards two Grammy Awards as well as one Emmy Award in 2015 she was ranked among the 100 most influential people in Time magazine. individuals and was awarded the National Medal of Art, which is America's highest award for accomplishment in the arts--from President Barack Obama. She's equally comfortable in television, film as well as Broadway. Her stunning soprano is a perfect fit for the stage. As well as performing on stage, she has earned a name for herself in a professional career that includes a significant recording and concert career. She performs regularly at the most prestigious places. McDonald grew in Fresno California, where she was raised by a clan that included musicians. At the Juilliard School in New York City, McDonald received training as the classical singer. A year after graduating, McDonald received an award for the Tony Award Best Performance for a Lead Actress of Musical in Carousel for Lincoln Center Theater. Over the next four years she won two more Tony Awards in the featured actress category for her performances on the Broadway premier of Terrence McNally's production Master Class (1996) and his Musical Ragtime (1998) which gave her the record-breaking total of three Tony Awards before the age of 30. In 2004 she won her fourth Tony acting alongside Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun and in 2012 she won the fifth time and first time in the lead actress category in the role of her lead as the title character in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. In 2014, she created Broadway history by becoming one of the Tony Awards most decorated performer when she won her sixth award for her portrayal of Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill the role which also served as a vehicle for her Olivier Award nominated performance in the 2017 season of the London's West End. Along with recording the record for the highest number of competitive wins by an actor she was also the first to win honors in all four acting categories. McDonald also has credits in other theatre productions such as The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (1999), Henry IV 2004 110 in the Shade (2006) Twelfth Nigh (2009) The Twelfth Night was her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut show, Shuffle Along or The Making of the Musical Sense of 1921 And All That Followed (16) Frankie and Johnny in Clair de Lune (192019) and Ohio State Murders (2023) McDonald was first seen on television in the Peabody Award-winning CBS series Having Our Say - The Delany Sisters's First 100 years. Her next appearance was as a recurring actor on NBC's Law & Order Special Victims Unit, in which she was a part of the cast with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber. McDonald's first Emmy came for the HBO movie adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winner Wit. Directed by Mike Nichols with Emma Thompson as the main character the actress was back on network television in 2003. The show she starred in was Mister Sterling and produced by Emmy Award Winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. Then, in the beginning of 2006, she joined the cast of the WB's The Bedford Diaries and over the course of the season, she was a recurring role on the NBC television show Kidnapped. McDonald won a 4th Emmy for her role as Lady Day in Emerson's Bar & Grill on HBO in 2016. She starred alongside Taylor Schilling and Steven Pasquale in The Bite a six-episode pandemic-themed drama produced through Spectrum Originals and CBS Studios in 2021. McDonald played U.S. prosecutor Liz Lawrence in the first episode of her role was seen on the CBS drama The Good Wife legal drama in 2009. It was her turn to reprise the role in 2018as the season regular Liz Reddick in Paramount+'s The Good Fight. For her performance, McDonald received three Critics Choice Award nominations. The actress is currently a guest on Julian Fellowes' historical drama The Gilded Age on HBO.